Atlantis U: Page 14

[Nixie]

Psst... Gerik... I don't think she likes you.

PAGE 14 (read right to left)

Also on DeviantArt- nilessa.deviantart.com/art/Atlantis-U-Page-14-64178092

[Tenjen]

ah...sudden hand grabbing = bad idea.

guess he'll have to learn to stand and pee with his off-hand.

or maybe he'll just have to sit.

well at least if he gets a girlfriend, her parents/friends wont be able to tell wether he visited her or not.

*****************************************

I LOVE THAT SNARL!!

Fantabulistic work kiwi! You've really brought that out!

[Nixie]

Thanks, Tenj ^_^ I had to redraw that darned panel five or six times.

[Foxy]

Gotta love the snarl! X3

Gerik must be pretty dense XD LOL

[Nixie]

Just a liiiiiiiiittle bit... XD

[AlexTHVK]

The Snarl is funny indeed, but for some reason the next panel with Gerik's "You're creepy" totally wins. XD

Indeed, getting a little too personal with a naked unknown girl who happens to be very quiet and whom someone just hooked with a fishing rod is.... somewhat of a bad idea. XD

[Nixie]

The "You're creepy" is my favorite thing on this page. He's almost delighted instead of creeped out. *cough* Freak! *cough*

[Tenjen]

He must lack contact with females.

He would have known how to react to such common bahav..spannered*

[Kristal Rose]

Yeah, she is scary/creepy. I wasn't expecting to see that. That's something you weren't able to do a couple years back. Your creepy never actually felt scary/creepy back then, though it was intriguing.

Your inset / pop-out panels are working well in a practical sense, but it occurs to me that perhaps you are forgetting to make overall panel geometry part of the composition.

The work has a lot of depth, especially between panels, which is a cool thing. In spite of that, you don't seem to have basic vanishing points down: for instance the two shelves indicate a vanishing point far away, but either shelf and the edge of the bed indicate a VP quite close (like a fish-eye lens). Whethar you fit chars to rooms, or rooms to chars, even if you warp perspective, you still need to set up VPs first. The junction of the walls, the pole, and the bookcase do all line up well for your vertical VP in a 3-point perspective, to give that looking down in on feel.

[Nixie]

I fail both at making characters fit into backgrounds AND fitting backgrounds to characters... While I'm drawing a character, I constantly see annoying little issues that can only be corrected by altering what angle the character is viewed from. Especially in the case of heads and trying to match a head with the body. I have five or six books that deal with drawing perspective, but it still doesn't help. That's why I want a 3D program to work with for backgrounds.

[Kristal Rose]

Sketching a single 3pt vanishing 3D grid layer is your simplest bet if you don't have a feel for an invisible grid yet.. A lot of work, but other approaches are far more work and only worth it if you have to reuse your sets a 100 times, like in a movie.

[Nixie]

But I WILL. 90% of this bloody manga takes place in that little boat, and as you can see, even my most simple backgrounds look askew.

[Kristal Rose]

Make it a cartoony boat, and just use small bits of it in the background. It would take you a week just to draft a boat for rendering, though that's going to be a tough one for freehand perspective too. A single comic book is not worth the hassle in my opinion. I already gave you my advice, buy those programs I suggested if you must (which might be good educational toys), but work on getting the hang of visualising a 3pt perspective for whatever your sketching or placing. 3D modelling might come in useful, but 3 pt freehand perspective you pretty much have to learn for what you do. Alex needs work on it too. Otherwise you'll be stuck using vignette compositions so readers don't say 'Hmm, this artist doesn't know perspective'. I could be wrong, but I'm guessing the average reader will spot that before spotting improper lighting and shading. Sure, you guys all critiqued each others lighting first, but that's because you all intuitively knew that perspective was beyond all of you, that no one dare speak up and get stuck trying to explain it. Then there are folks like myself, or those who jumped straight into modelling, who always were better at perspective than lighting. (I can do lighting from a model just fine, but I doubt I'd have a knack for doing it from memory and theory like you do).

Anyhow, you just want to complain at this point. You know what the issues are, and aren't happy with any of the available options. Your idea had merit. I'm just letting you know that even after making the models that it's going to be about as much pain as photographing rooms in the right way (lens, distance, location, direction) to paste existing photos of people in to. Since it's a self motivated excursion, and relevant to your work, it may be the best excuse you'll ever have to start learning modelling. Either way, it's time to decide an approach and be enthusiastic about new learning. ..and those auctions close soon if you need to call upon me for lack of an ebay acct.

[Nixie]

But the things you pointed out either don't work on Vista or require that DOSbox thing which requires a floppy disk drive. Maybe I'll get Bender. It's free and Vista compatible, and there are tutorials all over the web.

Dangit, boat cabins are hard! The walls aren't straight, the interior decor is so different, and everything is so close together. I really would need a model, or a lot of video footage from inside a boat. The best I have now are photos of the inside of cabins in big expensive cruise liners, found online. I have no references for this location, and I don't think I've been in a small boat like this, that's my problem. I don't know anything about the setting.

[Tenjen]

how about checking pictures of boat interiors advertised on websites?

Sometimes boat rental or boat sellers will have pictures of the inside of a boat [or boat model; as in production model, not a miniature]

it will at least give you an idea.